Address isn't exact? It's pretty damn accurate every time I try Google Maps. If you're talking about geolocation then yeah, that's inaccurate, and that's one of the reasons you should prompt for an actual address.

Address isn't exact? It's pretty damn accurate every time I try Google Maps. If you're talking about geolocation then yeah, that's inaccurate, and that's one of the reasons you should prompt for an actual address.

I thought I get them to type it in text box or input text.

But what if they type the address wrong or miss-spell it? For example:

What do you want me to say? That you should know what the user wants without them telling you? If they screw up entering the address then they'll get bad results, if any at all. Then they'll wonder what happened, look at what they entered, kick themselves, and try entering it again correctly.

How precise it needs to be depends on the geo-encoding API that you're using. I know that google's API gives back up to 5 addresses with the lat/lng values if it can't find an exact match, so you just need to adjust your programming to cater for the results of the API that you're using.

You could always give them the option of manually placing a marker on the map as well, and just use an address for initial positioning. That way if the position returned by the address lookup is not quite accurate enough for their tastes it can be adjusted.

I've done this in the past before, and Craig's List does this as well. You enter in an address, it plops down a marker for where the API says that address is, then you can drag it around to where you actually want it.

Obviously there isn't really much of anything you can do about users [un]intentionally entering in invalid details such as a typo in the address or a flat out incorrect address. If an address doesn't resolve you can notify them of the error and try again but if it does you just have to rely on them to make sure it's actually correct.